Gospel Matrescence

Did you know that worship in the Bible was never meant to be passive but rather physical, communal, rhythmic, and healing?  In this episode, Andie looks at the scientific benefits of community and worship as it relates to the neuroscience of healing trauma and resetting the nervous system, especially in children.  

What if the church, and our families, reclaimed worship as a mental health, healing practice?  What if we actually followed the scriptural mandates to clap, dance, shout, and raise hands, not just because we are joyful but because our nervous systems needed it?  What if we actually understood how to use worship as a method of fostering mental health?  

Are you ready for all the extra time summer brings?  Do you have a plan to scroll less and read more for yourself and your kids?  

Did you know reading might be the missing tool in the development of your family culture and the formation of your character?  Reading does these five things for us and our children:

• Forms a moral imagination
• Teaches empathy & awakens affection
• Provides an antidote to ignorance & entitlement
• Builds academic abilities
• Protects mental health

Get inspired to build the habit of reading into your family culture with the strategies Andie offers.  Here are the books she mentions in this episode: 

• American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
• Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
• The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson  
• This Tender Land by William Kent Kruger
• So Far from the Bamboo Grove & My Brother, My Sister, and I by Yoko Kawashima Watkins

This episode is part four in a series wrestling with this concept and learning how our reactions to our children growing through these phases can speed up or slow down their path to adulthood!   Andie discusses the tools that are appropriate to use in each stage, as well as the "God's Tools vs. Man's Tools" chart found linked below.  

These five stages are:

1. Enmeshment - The child's identity, beliefs,  and emotional experiences are interconnected and enmeshed with their family of origin.  
2. Socialization - As the child begins to look outside the family, social interactions and friends become important.
3. Separation - The young teen begins the process of pulling away from the family to try to seek out their own worldview, convictions, and identity. 
4. Individuation - In an attempt to define themselves as an individual, the young adult differentiates from their family and forms their own concepts of self, friends, and God. 
5. Cooperation - After developing a healthy sense of self, God, and deep social connections outside the family, the young adult enters a peaceful and cooperative relational connection with their family of origin.

God's Tools vs. Man's Tools - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZELkVEq6XdbO1458RVBSQ7Tci771Ud3GYMJRUQf-YrI/edit?usp=sharing

Building on the concepts presented in the last episode, we will take a deeper look at the last two phases (Individuation & Cooperation) of growth to adulthood.  We will look at both healthy responses and unhealthy responses of both parents and siblings when a child follows this natural progression to maturity.  

Building on the concepts presented in the last episode, we will take a deeper look into the first three phases (Enmeshment, Socialization, & Separation) of growth to adulthood.  We will look at both healthy responses and unhealthy responses of both parents and siblings when a child follows this natural progression to maturity.  

Learning to adjust parenting strategies and expectations according to our children's stages of growth can be one of the most challenging aspects of parenting.  In this episode, Andie introduces the five stages of growth from infancy to adulthood. These five stages are:

1. Enmeshment - The child's identity, beliefs,  and emotional experiences are interconnected and enmeshed with their family of origin.  
2. Socialization - As the child begins to look outside the family, social interactions and friends become important.
3. Separation - The young teen begins the process of pulling away from the family to try to seek out their own worldview, convictions, and identity. 
4. Individuation - In an attempt to define themselves as an individual, the young adult differentiates from their family and forms their own concepts of self, friends, and God. 
5. Cooperation - After developing a healthy sense of self, God, and deep social connections outside the family, the young adult enters a peaceful and cooperative relational connection with their family of origin.

This episode is part one in a series wrestling with this concept and learning how our reactions to our children growing through these phases can speed up or slow down their path to adulthood!   

In this episode, Andie discusses the trending show on Netflix called Adolescence.  She gives an overview of the show and pulls out four distinct crises that we are facing today in relation to the welfare of our teenagers.  She leaves you with a challenge to evaluate your life in these four areas and ask the Holy Spirit what adjustments might be needed in your home to provide the strong leadership our teenagers need to thrive in today's culture.  

Does the job of motherhood often feel like more than you are capable of doing yourself?  That is because it is! 

An "allomother" refers to an individual, other than the biological mother, who performs maternal caregiving or provisioning for children. An allomother is a non-maternal caregiver who invests in children through nurturing, discipleship,  or provisioning. 

In this episode, we look into the history of 'collective caregiving networks' and how different that is from the radically individualistic society we have built today.  It is easy to idealize a community of 'allomothers' but what actually holds us back from building this type of community for ourselves and for our families?  Join us as we take a look at 5 reasons you may not have a community of allomothers to support you.  Be willing to take an honest look at your own parenting and see what you can do to build your own network of allomothers!  

Gospel Matrescence is hosting our first-ever in-person Spring Retreat on April 4-6, 2025!  The theme will be "Tending Your Own Garden".  As mothers, we are deeply concerned about the garden of our children's souls but we often neglect our own garden. 

Join us for three days at a home near the Denver area for a weekend of fellowship, worship, rest, encouragement, recreation, watercolor painting, and fun!  In this episode, I share the details of the retreat and instructions on how to register.  There are only 18 spots available so register soon!

To sign up, visit - https://gospelmatrescence.mykajabi.com/offers/vUpnXivp/checkout

A diminishing tendency is an accidental or purposeful propensity to avoid deeply seeing the heart motivation or needs of another person due to your own ignorance, assumptions, or offenses.  In this episode, we define these and do some soul-searching to see if these are affecting our connection to those we love most.  

This concept is laid out in the book, How to Know a Person by David Brooks. Listed below are the names and descriptions of each of these tendencies.  

-Size Up - a quick judgment or generalization of another person based on a first instinct or gut reaction

-Static Mindset - when you have known someone for a long time and you form a certain conception of that person, but you don’t update your model of who they are or how they may have changed.

-Egotism - a self-centered obsession that keeps the focus on your own point of view and experiences

-Anxiety - noise in your own head that is insecure and fearful, and prevents you from hearing another person’s perspective and heart

-Naïve Realism - assuming that your view is the objective view and others should see reality as you do

-The Lesser Minds Problem - the tendency  to think that you are more complicated, perceptive, and high-minded than others based on the fact that you judge others by the words they say, not realizing that not having access to the other person’s thoughts greatly limits your ability to see the full picture

-Objectivism - the tendency to objectify and/or overly simplify another person’s perspective, without giving credit to their unique perspective, deeper feelings, experiences, desires, and intuition.

-Essentialism - the practice of learning one thing about a person, then making a whole series  of further assumptions about them based on that one aspect of their identity